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Tag Archives: Sounds

“Way back when I was being trained in customer service in my IBM days, it was observed that on average, someone who ‘dislikes’ something is about nine times more likely to tell people about it than someone who ‘likes’ something, if not otherwise prodded to do so.

I have absolutely no idea what the ‘real’ opinions are of the new sounds. Personally, other than the critical hit notifications, I very much like them.

And, yes, we do go to real vehicles. We did a number of recordings last year. At the bottom of this post is part of the contract agreement we had with one location I was involved with recording a collection of WW2 vehicles. If memory serves, we did about three vehicles a day as the process takes so long.

My guess is that people complain because either (a) as mentioned, the hardware they have won’t properly produce the right sound, or (b) they have a false idea of what a tank actually sounds like when done in high fidelity at the tank itself. It was referred to me as ‘The Coconut Effect’, that people expect a certain sound and complain if they don’t get it. My personal point of reference is the cannon sounds, with people complaining that they want the impressive ‘boom’ back. But that’s not what a tank cannon really sounds like.

Anyway, below is how we recorded. This particular requirements list was for the contract which covered M7 HMC, M3A1 Light, Valentine, JgdPz38(t), M4A1, M5 Light, M18 and M24, and it was far from the only recording session we did. If you run the game and you don’t think any of these vehicles sound ‘right’, the chances are that the problem’s on your end.

RECORDING THE TANKS IN TWO MODES: ON THE MOVE AND STATIC.

A) Static (without movements but with the engine).

We will record the sounds inside and outside on the permanently installed microphones near the tank plus one microphone is inside the tower. A soundman (representative of WG) will be recording close to the exhaust system, another operator will be recording inside the turret plus one soundman is on distance of 50 meters, and will be recording in a different angles.

Take list:

1. Engine start.

2. Shutdown the engine

3. Engine start and warming up (low RPM) – 1 minute.

4. Running the engine at medium speed (mid RPM) – 1 minute.

5. Running the engine at high rpm (high RPM) – up to 1 minute.

6. Running the engine at varying intensity – 2 minutes

7. Smooth and very slow increase from low RPM to high RPM – 3 times.

8. Switching off the engine

9. Checking of the recorded take – 10 minutes.

B) Static (with engine off) We will record mechanisms inside and outside the turret (of the electrical or hydraulic drives)

Take list:

1. Rotation mechanism inside the turret- 3 – 5 times (a few turns on a small angle and a few on large)

2. Opening and closing the hatches – 5 minutes

3. Mechanisms shutter of barrel – 10 minutes

4. Toggling of different switches – 5 minutes

5. Technical measurements of the sound level – 5 minutes

C) Recording on move

We will record sounds inside and outside on the permanently installed microphones on the tank hull plus some microphone in the hands of the sound engineers. A soundman (representative of WG is in the open hatch of the tower during movement) another soundman – operator of the recording equipment installed inside the tower (the representative of WG is in the turret while driving) plus one soundman is on distance of 100-200 meters and will record the overall sound atmosphere (representative of WG).

Take list:

1. Engine start

2. Straight-line acceleration (smooth surface without slope) in the first or second transfer with minimal acceleration – 3 times

3. Full stop of the tank after reaching the maximum RPM for the gear – 3 times

4. Straight-line acceleration on the first (second) transfer with maximum acceleration – 3 times

– work on sounds was conducted during last year, there was a huge amount of recording content labor
– 60 – 70 % are new, unique sound effects
– regarding sound, DICE has very good projects
– doing the sounds in a year and collecting all the material is a great success, earlier he was making sounds for Blitz
– the work on sounds is A+ quality
– WG will watch player feedback and implement corrections to the sounds
– WG implemented presets used in mixing using WWise
– FMod (former technology) is like Paint, WWise is like Photoshop – the previous system was from 2003
– the old FMod system didn’t allow much space for improvement, using WWise is a great step
– the sounds will also be comfortable for players with cheap audio devices
– there is some content which didn’t make it into 9.14, the sounds will be supplemented further
– a gun shot is a modular system – each shot is unique, it doesn’t repeat itself; during shots, 10 sounds are played, which are mixed together from different parts
– the modular system also works on single-core CPUs, not stressing them more than the previous one
– about 80 – 90 % of the previous sounds were reworked, only small things such as notifications remain
– audio designers are scarce in post-Soviet states, there are no institutions to educate them